Google Assistant is no J.A.R.V.I.S., but it's come a long way since it was announced in 2016. Not only can it control tens of thousands of smart home devices, but it can also hold calls for you. The sheer utility it offers has made it a part of the lives of users worldwide. Unfortunately, for some of them, it has been unavailable across all devices — including Android/iOS phones and even smart displays/speakers.

As noted by our tipsters, launching Google Assistant on the phone returns with a "Can't reach Google at the moment" or "Something went wrong" error. The problem persists even after trying regular fixes such as rebooting the phone, clearing cache/data, updating the app, or switching between mobile data and WiFi.

An instance of Google Assistant returning an error on a smartphone. (Image: Reddit)

Apart from smartphones, smart speakers are hit too, and any request is serviced with either a “Something went wrong” or a “There is a glitch" error. Smart displays are worse off as affected devices won't go beyond the white boot screen (as seen in the image below, rendering them practically useless — smart accessories can't be controlled, and Routines won't start.

An instance of a smart speaker affected by the issue. (Image: Google Nest Support Forum)

What's notable is that once a user is hit with the glitch, Google Assistant on all their devices stops working almost instantly. As noted by 9to5Google, the only workaround that seems to work is signing in with a different Google account. This suggests that the glitch might be a Google account-related issue. For what it's worth, this problem seems to have cropped up shortly after Google services were affected by an authentication system outage last week. Although, it's unclear whether this is related to the matter at hand.

Fortunately, a product expert on the Assistant support forum has noted that the "Google support team is aware of this issue." While there's no ETA on when the fix will arrive, we're hoping it won't be long. We are keeping track of the issue and will update the story if we hear anything from Google on this.

Source: Reddit

Thanks: George and Haydn